Innovator & Billionaire Elon Musk Biography, Everything you need to know

Who is Elon Musk?

5 min readApr 14, 2021

Elon Musk is a South African entrepreneur, innovator, programmer, Investor, Engineer, and Businessman.

He is the founder and CEO Of Private Space agency SpaceX( which launched a landmark commercial spacecraft in 2012) co-founder and CEO Of Electric car Company Tesla INC, founder of THE BORING COMPANY, Co-founder of machine learning-based company Neuralink, co-founder of artificial intelligence interest OpenAI and payment based company PayPal.

He became a millionaire at the age of 20 only when he sold his own programmed startup company Zip2 to the famous computer-based company Compaq.

“I’m very pro-environment, but let’s figure out how to do it better and not jump through a dozen hoops to achieve what is obvious in the first place.” — Elon Musk

Biography/wiki:

Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa. He was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He was at the age of only 10 at the time of his parent’s divorce.

As a child, he displayed his talent for Reading Scientific books, Computers, and entrepreneurship. Elon Musk was so lost in his daydreams about his inventions and Talent that his parents ordered a test to check his hearing.

When he was at the age of 12, he developed a video game named “Blaster” which he sold to a computer magazine.

In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Elon Musk left South Africa because he was unwilling to support military service which is compulsory for South African citizens and one more reason behind this was he sought the greater economic opportunities available in the US.

He was a very introverted and bookish person, At the age of 15, he was bullied by his friends. To tackle this problem Elon Musk learned how to defend himself with karate and wrestling.

Family Details:

Father: Errol Musk

He was an Electromechanical Engineer, after this, he chose a career as a Pilot and Sailor.

Mother: Maye Musk

She is a model and dietician.

Siblings :

He has a brother named “Kimbal Musk” who is an Entrepreneur and a philanthropist. His sister’s name is” Tosca Musk” who is a Filmmaker by profession.

Companies:

Zip2 Corporation

Elon Musk launched his first company in 1995 with his brother “Kimbal musk”.They named his company “Zip2 corporation”.This is an online city guide, which got its immense popularity by providing content for the new websites of famous News website “The Newyork Times” and “The Chicago Tribune”. In the year 1999, they sold Zip2 at $307 million in cash and $34 million in Stocks.

PayPal

Elon and Kimbal Musk used the money from their sale of Zip2 to found X.com in 1999. This is an online payment company. This also leads to the creation of PAYPAL.In 2002, Elon musk earned billion-dollar when PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.5billion in stock.

SpaceX

Musk founded his third company, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX, this company gained immense popularity when NASA awarded the company the contract to handle cargo transport for the International Space Station — with plans for astronaut transport in the future.

SolarCity

Elon Musk originally suggested the concept of “Solar” for the company that became SolarCity to his cousins, Peter and Lyndon Rive, in 2004.To eliminate the dependency on fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum, etc, he think to draw energy from the “giant fusion reactor in the sky” (i.e the Sun) has been one of Elon’s priorities for more than a decade.

SolarCity Corporation is a subsidiary of electric vehicle company Tesla. SolarCity specializes in solar energy services. SolarCity markets manufacture, and install Solar Panels in residential and commercial places.

The Boring Company

Traffic is driving me nuts. I am going to build a tunnel boring machine… -@ElonMusk

The Boring Company is an American infrastructure and tunnel construction services company founded in December 2016. It is founded when Elon musk get disturbed due to traffic in Los Angeles.

OpenAI

In the month of Sep 2017, Elon Musk announced that he believed AI i.e Artificial Intelligence and the competition for superiority may cause of World War III.

That’s why Musk Launched OpenAI. The main purpose of OpenAI is to strengthen AI research as it is a core component of modern-day technology.OpenAI aims to advance artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity and to develop AI technologies that can surpass the human brain.

Neuralink

Elon Musk co-founded Neuralink. It is a neural tech company that aims at developing neurotechnology which could integrate artificial intelligence into the human brain. It’s Amazing!

Unknown Facts about the Elon Musk:

He went door-to-door selling candy to rich people:
In his childhood, Elon Musk, his brother Kimbal and their cousins travelled around the rich area of the South African capital they sold homemade chocolate Easter eggs.
He Read the Entire Encyclopaedia Britannica at Nine Years Old.
He was bullied in his school:
When he was attending grade school in Pretoria, South Africa, Musk was not only the youngest and smallest kid in his class. Musk in his media interview said “gangs of boys in his school would sometimes hunt him down and sometimes push him down a flight of stairs in one instance and send him to the hospital as he was severely injured.
Elon musk parents and his doctor thought he was deaf:
Musk was very introspective in his nature that once his parents and doctors ordered tests to check if he was deaf.
Elon musk programmed his own video game at the age of 12 and got $500 by selling it :
He sold this video game named “Blaster” to a computer magazine company
On a trip to India, he spent a night with a spiritual guru who told him to serve the poor, because of this Elon Musk got the enlightenment to serve socially.
Being a Philanthropist, he founded the ‘Musk Foundation’.The main purpose of this foundation is to provide solar-power energy systems in disaster-prone areas. The main aim of this foundation is to support four distinct areas: renewable energy research and advocacy, human space exploration research and advocacy, pediatric research, and science and engineering education.

The road to success is never easy, a lot can be accomplished if you have enough determination and persistence. — Elon

We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn’t look right, comment your opinion, and if you like it, then please appreciate and share this!